


Fireworks of a Different Kind

by grievousGrimalkin



Category: Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Genre: F/M, Human-form Midna, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-19
Updated: 2014-01-19
Packaged: 2018-01-09 05:52:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1142243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grievousGrimalkin/pseuds/grievousGrimalkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Twilight Conflict is over, Ganon is defeated, and everybody's up for come celebration.  Midna's melancholy about leaving Link and Hyrule behind, until they decide to take the party elsewhere.  Originally intended as the first chapter of a larger work which was never completed, so it's now a one-shot.  Feel free to ask for further plot and ending details from the longer version, though know that I have few to no plans of continuing this fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fireworks of a Different Kind

Barnes’s fireworks burst through the early evening skies, drawing “Ooh!”s and “Ahh!”s from every street corner and back alley in Castle Town. Every soul in the city had flung themselves whole-heartedly into the festivities.

Save one…

Midna left the wild tumult of Telma's pub just as the sun dipped below the horizon. The flickering firelight glow from the open door sent her slender silhouette sprawling across the stairs. A long, black robe swished around her ankles as she climbed the stone steps into the cobbled courtyard, and the red sunset glow turned her pale complexion into shining silver, lighting her orange hair into windswept fire. She climbed atop a wooden crate in the corner and sat, leaning against the gray stone wall as she straightened her skirt across her pale knees. She sighed as she stared at the darkening sky, shot with the bright flashes of color, and dreamed of home. She pondered the past few months with their many changes, contemplating her duty and how everything might have gone differently if she had done as she was asked in the first place.

Lost in her thoughts and in the skies, she didn’t notice the bar’s door open or see another long silhouette play across the stairs. It took a warm hand on her knee to nudge her back into reality.

“Are you alright?” Link asked calmly.

“Yeah, fine,” she replied. “Just fine. Don’t mind me, just go back in and enjoy your party.”

“It’s your party too,” he said in the same even tone.

“I’d rather be out here,” she muttered back in a half-answer.   _It’ll never be my party_ , she would’ve finished but didn’t. “Don’t worry. Go have fun.”

“I would have more fun if you were there.” Midna smiled a little; he flirted with much less finesse than her previous suitors had, but, for some reason, Link’s odd bits of flattery, dropped clumsily into their conversations after the battle, touched her heart more unexpectedly than anything else had.

“Besides, it’s too bright in there for my taste,” she joked back, and his warm smile brightened her thoughts.

“Alright,” he laughed and turned reluctantly to return to the light.

“Do you want to stay out here with me?” she blurted, without thinking, freezing him in mid-step.

“Are you sure?” he replied as he turned back, barely hiding a wider, brighter smile.

“Of course.” She patted the crate next to her. He climbed up beside her and sat cross-legged as Midna tucked her knees up against her chest. They sat in silence for a long time, watching the stars come out amid the bursting fireworks.

“So what are your plans? You know, after this whole hero business blows over?” Midna said, finally breaking the silence.  
He thought for a moment before saying, “I hadn’t really thought about it. I guess I’ll go back and live in Ordon and work at the ranch. Maybe clear some forest and start my own farm. Maybe settle down… How about you?”

“I don’t know either. I usually just roll with the punches, decide on a whim. I never plan, I just go.”   She gestured out into the dark with a gray hand, sweeping her fingers out across the courtyard.  Both went quiet and let their minds wander, lost in their respective futures. Both were thinking the same thing. One knew he couldn’t ask it. The other knew she shouldn’t but eventually did:

“Do you want to go somewhere?”

“What?”

“Do you want to go somewhere? Get away from the drunk crowds and all?”

“Zelda wants us to be here for the big to-do at midnight.“

“We can be back in time.”

“I guess… Alright, let’s go.”

She used her magic to warp them away to Ordon Spring where fresh water rippled down a rocky waterfall and washed against the white sand. Midna cast off her black robe onto the shore, let her hair down, and waded out into the water, the hem of her skirt brushing the surface of the pool. She turned back to Link, still standing on the bank.

“The water’s great,” she joked as the lapping water chilled her ankles. “Come on.” She extended her arms toward him. “Come swimming with me.”

He blushed visibly in the pale light, blue eyes twinkling out silverly in the gloom.  Fumbling, he worked his way out of the mail and tunic, struggled with his boots, and undressed down to bare chest and leggings.  He waded out into the moonlight beside Midna.

“Now what?” he asked, folding his arms across his chest and pulling them in tightly, shivering from the chilly water that soaked his leggings to the knees.  Midna laughed a little as she surveyed the spring.  She nodded toward the waterfall.

“Let’s climb that.”

“Why?”  he asked as they waded deeper into the pool.

“Well,” she puzzled for a moment as Link climbed the first tier of the waterfall.  “Because they call this the spring, but obviously the water ‘springs’ from some place else.  I want to find the real source.” 

“You know,” he replied, holding out a hand to her and pulling her up to stand beside him.   “You’re completely crazy.”

“Proudly,” she laughed, sweeping down to splash him with the cold spring water.  The ensuing water fight and the climb up the rock wall of the waterfall soaked them.  They returned to the sandy beach without finding the real spring, instead only a snaking stream that burrowed its way back into the deepest parts of the forest.  

“Well, that was a total wa—,“ she started to say as she waded toward her discarded robe on the shore.  Instead, Link took her arm and stopped her.  She turned and found his lips suddenly pressed to hers, locked wide-eyed in a slightly awkward kiss.  She didn’t try to pull away from him; her frenzied thoughts consumed all her attention, rational and emotional battling in her mind:

'Why is he doing this?  Doesn’t he know I can’t stay?'  Emotion whimpered in her ear.

Logic dictated from the other side, 'Maybe he knows and is trying to persuade you not to leave.  You shouldn’t let him change your mind.' 

'But…'  Emotion moaned.  'Ooooh, I want this…' 

'It will complicate what has to be done.  You must leave and sever your ties to this world.  You cannot afford to do this.  Your people need you.'

'…I don’t care.' 

Midna leaned into the kiss, Emotion shoving Logic from her pedestal, as the Twilight Princess dragged Link to the sand.


End file.
